Wow, February already?

I spent the first part of January doing laundry and shopping and the last part of January on a cruise. Fourteen mostly beautiful days. We did have to sail through storms off the coast of California and they were ROUGH! Hawaii was wonderful and I learned I need to fly over and spend more time at each island. No way is a partial day enough.

Now I fully understand what my Mom was going though before her knee surgery. She went through drawers and closets clearing this out. I have surgery scheduled for Monday. It's out patient but I'll still be put under for it. I'm still going to leave a note on my keyboard. There wasn't time to go through drawers and closets. I'm truly hoping to be back soon after but give me a month to get my brain working again.

I bought two books while in Hawaii and even visited the State Library. I can hardly wait to tell you about it.

Hugs to all - go read a romance this month ;-)

Gina

recipe - Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been using this recipe close to 30 years. Family, friends and co-workers love it! There is also a story to how I got it. I'll edit later to share the story and hopefully add pictures of cookies but I shared most of the recipe on a recent cruise and want to get it posted!

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

This makes a huge amount of cookies and I use a stand mixer. I have halved the recipe without problems but still needed the stand mixer so I don't bother. Maybe your hand mixer is more powerful.

Cream together:

2 C butter
2 C sugar
2 C brown sugar (I actually use the whole pound because so much is left of the box)


Add:

4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla


Mix together:

4 C flour
5 C oatmeal* (use a blender to make flour out of this)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda


Slowly add dry ingredients to mixer. Mix well. Dough is ready to add any or all the following:

24 oz chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate
8 oz grated chocolate bar
3 C chopped nuts
I've also added raw sunflower seeds so go ahead and experiment

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets. Make golf ball sized cookies, set 2" apart and bake at 375˚F for 15 minutes. Makes 112 cookies.

Or use a cookie scoop. I use a small one, bake at 350˚F for 11 minutes. Most of the time, not all the dough makes it as cookies but I have gotten 104 cookies before.







*I have no idea out much oatmeal flour this makes, when I got the recipe, oatmeal flour wasn't found in the grocery stores easily. Or at all!